Family coverage in HCM City languishes at just 24 percent (Illustrative image. Source: internet)
HCM City (VNA) – Two years after the southern
city of HCM City launched , family coverage
languishes at just 24 percent—a disappointing result that augurs ill for the
Government’s bid to achieve by 2020.
The 2014 Law on Health Insurance and other regulations
stipulate that under the family or household health insurance plans, every
member of a family or household listed in the household registration book
(excluding the deceased and the temporarily absent) must buy health insurance.
The plans are designed to be more affordable than individual ones, which the
Government hopes will spur enrollment.
Larger households pay lower premiums per member instead of
paying the full price as each member applies for health insurance individually.
The household’s first member must pay 4.5 percent of his or her base salary;
while the second, third, and fourth members would pay 70, 60 and 50 percent of
the first member’s required payment, respectively. After the fifth member, each
person pays 40 percent of the first member’s payment.
Nguyen Thi Thu, deputy director of the HCM City Social
Insurance company, said one of the reasons the family plan enrollment rates
remained low despite the financial incentives was that many households had
unstable incomes. “Signing up for health insurance when family members are
healthy often seems like a waste of money,” she added.
This creates a problematic tendency for people to enroll in
health insurance programmes only when they start to get sick—something that needs
to change, especially when all public hospitals and medical centres in the city
start to charge uninsured patients the full cost of their care beginning this
month, according to Thu.
“The law requires family plan enrollment but since there are
no punitive measures for those who don’t comply, our hands are tied,” Thu said.
In order to achieve universal coverage by 2020 and the target
of 70 percent of health insurance card holders enrolling under the family plan,
Le Van Phuc, deputy head of the Department of Health Insurance Policy of the
Social Security, said the most important task was to raise awareness of the
benefits of the government-sponsored programme, cut down administrative
procedures and improve health services delivery quality.
In addition, Phuc said, local governments must craft policies
to support vulnerable demographic groups, such as people over age 70 and
households near the poverty line, to ensure 100 percent coverage for these
groups.
“With local engagement, social security units, and increased
public awareness, I’m confident the health insurance coverage under the family
plans would see a considerable improvement,” he added.-VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
